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Texas Hold 'Em is a fine game, but more and more the folks at ESPN are starting to showcase different kinds of games, and it's making the mass population realize there is more to poker than just Hold 'em.

About time.

My particular favorite to watch (over and over again, thanks to the network's ad nauseum airing of the thing) is the H.O.R.S.E. tournament, which was a $50,000 buy-in that rotated through each of five poker games. You have to be good at each game to do well.

The H is, of course, for Hold 'Em. Everyone is familiar with that game. I bet that most of you in your home games play Hold 'Em: two cards down, five community cards face up and the best five-card hand wins.

The O is for Omaha. This game is similar to Hold 'Em save for the number of cards you get to start things off. Players are each dealt four down cards, instead of two. There are again five community cards turned over, but the catch is, you can only use two of the cards in your hand to make the best five-card hand.

The R is for Razz, a variation on Seven-Card Stud. In Razz, though, your best hand is the lowest hand. The best hand in Razz, for example, is A-2-3-4-5. Flushes and straights have no standing. A players starts with two down cards and one face-up, like in 7-card stud. There is betting after each subsequent face-up card is turned, and finally, after the final down card.

The S stands for a more traditional take on Seven-Card Stud. The rules are the same as above, but you are looking for the highest hand in the more traditional sense. An aces-full-of-twos full house, for example, would win over a A-2-3-4-5 straight.

The E is a bit more contrived, standing for Seven-Card Stud, eight or better. This means it's a high-low game, and a chance to have a split pot. The person with the best high hand wins, and if there is a low hand possible, with the highest card in that hand eight or lower, the low hand will split the pot with the high hand. This is the most demanding of the games, and requires the most concentration.

So if you're looking to spice up your home game a bit, try any or all of these games in rotation.

Variety is, after all, the spice of life.

One-Eyed Jack is the Sun Journal's resident poker junkie. If you have burning questions for him, e-mail him at pokerjunkie@sunjournal.com. This column is for entertainment purposes only. It is not to be relied on for advice on how to win at poker, nor as a recommendation that the reader should gamble.

Source: Sunjournal.com

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A pretty popular message board topic is to speculate as to the net worth of the most famous poker players in the world, both online and "live."

While it can be fun to try and guess as to what each player is worth, there are several key details that most people overlook.

First off, some people will look at a player's total tournament cashes and automatically assume that someone is a multi-millionaire just because they have $3 million dollars in lifetime cashes.

Though they may very well be millionaires, oftentimes they are not. First off, staking is much more prevalent than you think in live tournament poker. At any major tournament, you can have as many as 50% of the "name pros" being staked for the tournament. So right off the bat you need to question how much of their $3 million in total cashes they actually got to keep. I mean, you probably didn't know that Annette "Annette_15" Obrestad was staked by the Bax/Sheets empire for the WSOPE Main event, and had to fork over 50% of her winnings. As I said, staking is everywhere in live tournament poker.

After that, you have Uncle Sam, who is going to take his cut. Also, if the player travels around playing live tournaments, this will take a serious dent out of their bankroll. They will have to fork over money for tournament buy-ins, hotels and airline tickets. It's not much of a stretch to think that someone with $3 million in cashes could have nothing left after staking, expenses and taxes.

Also, debt is everywhere in poker. It seems like everyone owes money or is owed money. There are players out there that are technically worth millions and millions of dollars, but are owed millions of dollars by other poker players. Money that they may or may not get back.

Also, many well-known poker players are gamblers in the truest sense of the word. Many millions of dollars are won and lost on the golf courses of Las Vegas, and many millions are lost playing craps, roulette and other table games in Vegas. Some players will win millions of dollars in tournaments and then dump this money off at the high limit table games in Vegas.

Also, just because you see a poker player playing with a $500k stack in front of them on High Stakes Poker, doesn't necessarily mean that they are worth tens of millions of dollars. They are either playing way of their bankroll, or they are being staked or at least partially staked to sit at the table. Some of the players at the tables on High Stakes Poker are certainly worth tens of millions of dollars, but some aren't worth nearly as much as you would think.

The last consideration to take into account when trying to figure out the net worth of well-known players is their outside business interests. Some of the most well-known poker players are also extremely savvy businessmen. Phil Hellmuth, love him or hate him, has to have a very large net worth due to his business interests. Players like Eli Elezra and Sammy Farha are wealthy outside of poker due to their numerous business interests.

Players such as Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson and Howard Lederer are worth millions of dollars on paper due to their equity stakes in Full Tilt Poker. Full Tilt Poker has to be worth at least a couple billion dollars, and these players (and others) all have substantial equity stakes in the company.

Many players also have a respectable poker bankroll that is dwarfed by the value of their real estate holdings.

In the end, there are many, many factors that would determine the net worth of a player. I suspect that many players have either a much smaller or much larger net worth than most people would think.

Source: Poker-king.com

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Randers Talks About Short-Stack Play, Folding Kings Preflop, and How Eric 'Sheets' Haber Helped Him Grow
Randy 'Randers' HaddoxRandy “Randers” Haddox went from teaching eighth-graders pre-algebra calculations and commanding junior-high football players on football fields to calculating pot odds and commanding piles of chips on the digital felts of online poker tables.

The job-change, which he made in the summer of 2006, let Haddox remain in Houston, Texas, where he’s lived his entire life — save for a stint at North Texas University, just north of Dallas — but his income changed substantially. The 28-year-old budding poker pro has earned $265,000 in Online Player of the Year-qualified finishes in 2007 alone, far more than a conventional teaching job could earn him. Nevertheless, he says that he hasn’t “really had a huge breakthrough score to justify doing it for a living … or for the living that I want, you know? But I’m still doing it. That’s what I do; I play tournaments online.”

Haddox has taken down three completely different OPOY tournaments this year: a $100 rebuy tournament on PokerStars (Oct. 28, $41,000), a Nightly Hundred Grand tournament on PokerStars (July 5, $28,000), and a $1K Monday tournament on Full Tilt (Jan. 29, $45,000). The differences in these tournaments — things like the buy-in, size of field, quality of players, blinds structure, and so on — illuminate just how versatile of a player Haddox is. You can throw him into pretty much any tournament and he has a better-than-average chance of taking it down. He has also proven his mettle in the brick-and-mortar world; he recently made the final table of a preliminary event in the 2007 World Poker Finals at Foxwoods, in Connecticut. He earned $38,000 for fifth place.

Card Player recently got on the phone with Haddox to talk about how he got his start, his advice on short-stack play, and whether he’s ever folded kings preflop:

Shawn Patrick Green: How did you get started playing poker? Was it the Chris Moneymaker Effect or did you start playing with friends?

Randy “Randers” Haddox: I think you can pretty much directly attribute it to the whole Moneymaker thing. It was just the competition and everything about it [that got me into poker], and obviously the dollar signs are an draw for everybody. And I’ve always loved game theory and competition, so it seemed like a natural progression for me.

SPG: What stakes did you start at? And did you play live, online, or with friends?

RH: I played pretty much strictly online. There was this site called Bugsy’s Club, and I started playing $10 MTTs [multitable tournaments] there. I would just get killed [laughing] by the players in these small buy-in events. I would just get killed and killed and killed until I made a breakthrough score.

You could do phone deposits on PartyPoker, so I would deposit $109 at a time every Sunday for one tournament a week [laughing], just for the late Sunday $109 buy-in tournament that paid like $9K for first. I took third in it one time for like $4,000 or $5,000, and I was like, “Whoa!” I thought that was the greatest and coolest thing ever. And then I took two grand of it and put it in Stars, and I lost $1,000 immediately playing in $20 and $50 tournaments and a Sunday event. So, I just took a step back and said, “OK, what am I going to do?” And I started playing $1-$2 no-limit and I built it up to like $4,000, and then I won a 180-man tournament — they had just started them, I guess, about two years ago. So, I won two of those, and then I played some $3-$6 [limit hold’em] and built my bankroll up to like 10 grand. And then I won a PCA [PokerStars Caribbean Adventure] seat, which I chopped and got like $8,000 more. I went and played in the Sunday Million the next week on my own for the first time, without winning a satellite in, and I won 86 grand. And I just started going from there.

SPG: What do you consider an all-in-or-fold-preflop-sized stack, and how do you play it?

RH: Well, one thing about MTTs is that I don’t think there’s one correct way to play. If you’re talking about three-betting, everyone knows that 15 to 25 BBs [big blinds] is somewhere where you’re getting it in. You’re not going to make a three-bet and fold. At 15 to 25, I’m three-betting all in, or open-shoving, I guess, in late position. But there’s no one correct way to play; it depends upon who’s in the blinds and whose calling-ranges are huge. I mean, you can shove anything from 15 down to just six or seven.

SPG: Say you have 10 big blinds; are you ever making a raise that’s not all in?

RH: I have before, but I just don’t know how I could justify it. I don’t know how I could justify raise-folding with less than 10 big blinds. I’ve got to pretty much make it clear that I’m going broke. I don’t think that I’ve ever encountered a situation wherein I’ve limp-folded or raise-folded with 10 big blinds.

SPG: Well, I wasn’t assuming that you would necessarily fold, I was asking if there was any situation wherein you would raise without going all in with just 10 big blinds, fully intending to call all in, if necessary.

RH: I did that deep in the [PokerStars] Sunday Second Chance, and I got some really weird shoves. I got a shove from this guy named C.K. I did a little min-raise with eight BBs or nine BBs; I had A-Q. I wanted a little bit of action, but he just shoved 7-6 on me for his whole stack. That makes you take a step back and wonder, “Maybe I should be doing this more often.”

But in the higher buy-in tournaments, I just go ahead and get it in. I don’t think your strategy can be compromised if you’re making that play with that stack in the higher buy-in tournaments. I just don’t see you making a standard raise; maybe there’s an argument for it, but I just don’t have it in my game, I guess. There are opportunities that I don’t know about until they pop up; it just depends on what’s going on at the table.

SPG: Is there any upside to playing with a short-stack?

RH: If you’re not good at it, then you’re not going to be good at tournaments. I guess the upside of it is that you’re going to get called light. There are people in tournaments that are not familiar with your shoving ranges, and they aren’t familiar with their own calling ranges, so you can be shoving a very tight range and they just see you as shoving wide. They haven’t made the adjustment, yet, and I think there are a lot of people that haven’t made the adjustment for calling. Being good is knowing your ranges and knowing the ranges of the other people calling. It’s a skill that winning MTT players have and they keep getting better at — I mean, you have to.

SPG: It seems like poker pros always tout the virtues of being more aggressive and pushing people around when you have a big stack. The trouble is, they often leave it at that and don’t really get into just how much more aggressive is appropriate without going overboard and endangering everything that you’ve won. What’s your take on big-stack play?

RH: [Laughs] I … I suck at it. I had a huge stack in the $5K event at Foxwoods. I had a final-six stack with 60 people left, going to dinner. I had this monster stack going to dinner and then, “Weeeeee … ” Within a half hour, I was down to 90,000. I was just splashing in pots with 10 high or making reraises with A-Q and committing myself to pushes. There are some bad things that I do, but I do like to stay aggressive — you have to. You’ve got to accumulate every chip in the tournament.

But you have to maintain, as well, and that’s one of the things I’ve really worked on. Last year, I was just a maniac, and I tried to get every chip at every opportunity. You can’t really just run over a high buy-in field. A high buy-in field is going have players that are going to temper you down if you don’t want to slow down.

SPG: In my interview with Jimmy “gobboboy” Fricke last week, he mentioned some discussions online about whether you could, or should, ever fold aces preflop. Can you think of any situation in which it might make sense?

RH: There’s the standard [David] Sklansky satellite situation that would justify it, a situation in which you’re pretty much guaranteed a seat, wherein you can fold to a seat and there’s no reason to call off all of your chips. I don’t even fold it in that situation, though. But in normal play, I don’t think folding aces preflop is even a discussion. I don’t think rational people talk about that.

SPG: What would it take to make you fold pocket kings preflop?

RH: Whew … well, I guess playing about 200 BBs deep, really deep in a big tournament and the only player who has me covered I know has to have aces. And I say that, but we were 10-handed in New Orleans this year at a $2K final table. I was second in chips with 200,000 and the other guy had 210,000, and nobody else had more than 60,000. I had raised in the first six hands of day 2, which is the final table day. In the seventh hand, I get kings, and I raise from under the gun. And, of course, the guy with 210K makes it 20 times my raise; he puts in 120,000 in chips and is left with 90,000 behind. And I’m like, “There is no way he makes that play with aces.” But he pretty much told me, he said, “Everybody in the room knows what I’ve got.” I just looked at him, and I thought about how many times I’d raised, and I just said, “Screw it. I’ve got kings, and I’m not folding.” I’m not a big folder preflop, I guess. It takes a lot for me to lay it down.

SPG: So, what’d he have?

RH: He had aces [laughs]. So I went home and cried in my pillow like an idiot. I raise to 6,000 and then stack of for 200,000.

SPG: Have you ever folded kings preflop, then?

RH: I did. This summer at the [World Series of Poker] main event I folded them to gbmantis, Nick Niergarth. We had just swapped 2 percent and the main event was just starting. He raises from under the gun — we’re both playing with 20K stacks — he makes it 325, and I make it 975 with kings from the small blind. I probably should keep the pot small out of position, but it’s gbmantis, and his range is so wide that I can probably get him to flat-call light and then fold the flop. He makes it 3,800, and he’s looking at me sternly, and I was just like, “Wow, I don’t want to stack off in the third hand of the main event for 20K.” I thought about it for like three minutes and then decided that I didn’t want to flat-call and then fold all flops, here, except for king-high flops. So, I mucked, and he showed me two queens and said, “Are those good?” And I was just like, “Oh, my God.” So, I’m not going to fold kings preflop again, but I think that was the only time I’ve ever folded them preflop.

SPG: What kinds of situations give you the most trouble?

RH: Underestimating opponents. They have hands, you know? I like to keep the pressure on, and sometimes I overestimate how much they’re playing back at me. That’s one of the things that I’ve really tuned down a lot, because people are just playing their hands. They don’t care if you’re overaggressive, they’re aggressive, too. But sometimes they have a hand, and you just have to back off.

SPG: To what do you attribute your success in online poker?

RH: Being lucky at tournaments [laughing]. Being extremely lucky in some of the largest-field events there are. That pretty much can sum it up.

SPG: [Laughs] You don’t think you have any specific aspects that a poker player should have that are working particularly well for you?

RH: Yeah, I think you interviewed Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman, and the thing that he said about when you get deep in a tournament and your equity gets higher, that’s when my focus turns way up. And that’s something that I have to adjust, because I need to be doing that for the whole tournament.

I think focus and not being afraid to go broke in a tournament are my good qualifies. I really don’t mind putting all of my chips in just to make a move or to let you know that I don’t mind going broke. I think being super-aggressive and not minding going broke are two things that I have.

SPG: Well, you mentioned the comment that Scott Freeman made. I actually thought that was kind of interesting, at the time, because it struck me that maybe that is a good way to play because you don’t wear yourself out by over-thinking things or thinking too much and going brain-dead by the time it matters. Do you actually think that that may be the case, that that is the best way to play — not focusing until your equity is higher?

RH: It just might be something that your brain does, subconsciously. It’s a muscle, and it has memory, and your brain does the same thing over and over again. So, I’m sure that when the situation arises, that’s what your brain turns to doing. It’s probably what it’s doing the whole time.

SPG: What do you still have to learn?

RH: [Laughs] Well, basically, I’m learning every day. There’s nothing that I know for certain in this game. People are getting better every day, so if you don’t, you’re going to fall to the wayside. But one of the big, big things that has changed in my game is my 10 to 15 BB short-stack play that sheets [Eric Haber] has really helped me a lot with. I didn’t really have that last year, and that’s increased my equity a lot in tournaments.

SPG: How did sheets help you with that?

RH: I was just going to his site and talking with him about some hands. My range was way too wide before, and I would pretty much give up on tournaments if I had 10 to 15 BBs. I’d say, “Pfft, here they are,” and jam it up in there. He really slowed me down on doing stuff like that.

SPG: Well, say you have A-9 suited, are you a lot more likely to fold that kind of hand preflop when short-stacked, then? Is that what you’re saying?

RH: Yeah, depending on where I’m at on the table, what my stack size is, who’s behind me, and what tournament it is. Before, if I was under the gun and I had 15 to 18 BBs, I would just be like, “Whoa, here you go,” with hands like K-Q, Q-J, sixes, fives, and things that wouldn’t even make sense. I wouldn’t just open, I’d open-jam, and that’s totally $20 freezeout/$3 rebuy donkey stuff that I’ve gotten out of my game.

SPG: What tournament do you look forward to the most every week and why?

RH: I used to mile the Sunday Million; I used to do well in that. I like the $200 buy-in Omaha eight-or-better tournament on Sundays, it’s pretty fun. I’ve only played in it a couple of times, but it’s pretty fun at the end of a Sunday to play a game that you know nothing about [laughing] and to deliver bad beats and have people berate you.

SPG: Thanks a lot for doing this interview with us, Randy.

Source: Cardplayer.com

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It's taken awhile but Ladbrokes has finally brought online poker into the three-dimensional world.

The feature, which has Ladbrokes previewed a couple months ago, launched earlier this week and players can now take a seat at a 3D table.

Ladbrokes is the first poker site to offer a 3D virtual reality poker experience and every game they offer can be presented in 3D if the costumer wishes.

"This is a major step in the convergence of video gaming technology and online gaming and we're pleased to be the first leading poker site to go virtual," commented Ladbrokes MD of eGaming John O'Reilly in a press release.

All Ladbrokes customers will now have the option of creating a 3D avatar with physical characteristics chosen by the player. The avatars will display the same human-like movements that have previously been seen in state of the art video games. It's up to the player if they want the avatar to resemble themselves.

Players can tweak their eye color, skin tone, hair color, facial features and more. There will also be a randomize feature which will create an avatar for the player. If you're feeling particularly brave there is also a "freak" feature which creates the weirdest, wackiest characters.

Players can also have their avatar perform fake tells such as scratching their head or punching the air. There are even chip tricks that can be done.

There is also be a robust single-player experience that can be played off-line. It will include a tutorial for new No-Limit Hold'em players that covers items like starting hands, bluffing, odds and table position.

Despite all the new features the best one is probably the most simple. Being able to play in a true 3D environment will bring players one step closer to the casino experience.

One thing is certain, online poker just got a lot more interesting to look at.

Source: Pokerlistings.com

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NORWICH - A gambler from New York with a history of cheating was arrested at the Mohegan Sun Casino Thursday after investigators discovered he had been marking cards during a poker game, state police said.

Sholem J. Weisner, 26, of Brooklyn, was found with about $55,000 in his hotel room at the casino Thursday.

He is being charged with cheating, first-degree larceny and criminal trespass. He is out on $5,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in Superior Court in Norwich on Dec. 6.

State police say Weisner had been marking certain cards while playing Texas Hold-em to determine their location.

Weisner had been thrown out of the casino in September 2006 for cheating, but was using a friend's Players Club card and social security card on Thursday to avoid being identified, state police said.

Source: Courant.com

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"There are 28 million self-identified poker players who want to play and bet online. They are adults who as American citizens have a right to play poker, a game of skill, in the privacy of their own homes on their own computers. There is a limit to how much government can interfere with our fellow citizens' rights to participate in a recreational activity of their choice."

So testified Rep. Shelly Berkley, D-Nev., at a House Judiciary Committee hearing looking into online gambling law enforcement on Thursday. As congressional hearings go, this one gets a five-star rating from How the World Works. There were professional poker players referencing John Locke and John Stuart Mill, Tennessee legislators getting medieval on the Family Research Council, and a discussion of the odds against James Bond drawing an inside flush in "Casino Royale." All this against a backdrop featuring a mighty clash between states' rights and international treaty obligations.

The context is complicated. In October 2006, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist successfully slipped the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act into a port security bill. The UIGEA, summarizes Wikipedia, prohibits "the transfer of funds from a financial institution to an Internet gambling site, with the notable exceptions of fantasy sports, online lotteries, and horse/harness racing."

Not only did the passage of this act annoy millions of American online poker players and play havoc with the revenue of Internet gaming companies, but according to multiple rulings by the World Trade Organization, ongoing efforts by U.S. authorities to criminally prosecute individuals connected with offshore, or "remote," Internet gambling directly contravenes U.S. commitments under international law.

The question at hand for the Democratically controlled Congress is whether to roll back the ban on Internet gambling, further strengthen it, carve out some exceptions to it, or just study the matter further. Rep. Berkley testified in favor of funding a study to find out just how detrimental to society Internet gambling really is. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, has proposed a bill that would allow so-called games of skill, including poker, backgammon and mah-jongg, to be exempt from the ban.

For Annie Duke, a successful female poker player, mother of four, Columbia grad, and ardent defender of the right to play online poker, the issue was a clear case of government infringement of civil liberties. Duke believes that Congress "strayed significantly" from the founding principles of the U.S., as articulated by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson in the tradition of Locke and Mill, when it passed the UIGEA. She boldly suggested that Ronald "I believe in a government that protects us from each other. I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves" Reagan would have disapproved.

Duke even managed to tie in the subprime mortgage scandal, which How the World Works found especially titillating:

The issue for me is that people make bad decisions all the time that create bankruptcy and problems in their family. For example, accepting a sub-prime zero percent down mortgage has created a lot of bankruptcies recently. Online shopping or shopping in real life has created a lot of bankruptcies. If we choose to ban every activity that creates financial hardship in a family, we are going to be banning basically every activity. If we choose to ban anything that hurts a family, we are going to be banning McDonald's, for example, because many fathers die prematurely from eating fatty foods and leave their children with no means to support themselves, and you know, a lot of ruining of lives occur because people are eating too many McDonald's' hamburgers. I would hope that we aren't going to ban that either.

Her counterparts, who included Tom McClusky, the vice president of governmental affairs for the Family Research Council, the arch-conservative advocacy organization founded by Christian crusader James Dobson, split their time between defining the issue as one either of morality or states' rights, or both. Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte, R-Va., testified that the "negative consequences" of online gambling "can be more detrimental to the families and communities of addictive gamblers than if a bricks-and-mortar casino was built right next door or in your community." It is "the crack cocaine of the Internet," said McClusky, a menace to children and a playground for organized crime. From this stance, the U.S. is not thumbing its nose at international law when it refuses to accept the decision of the WTO, but is instead taking a principled stand on an issue of fundamental morality.

But Joseph Weiler, a law professor at New York University, observed that the WTO judges, in theory, accepted the principle that a country could reject its WTO obligations on the basis of morality. But by carving out exceptions to the ban on illegal online gambling in the United States -- most notably horse racing -- the U.S. undermined its own position. And the consequences, Weiler said, could be dangerous. If the U.S., the prime motivating force in originally setting up the WTO, and a country not at all afraid to pursue judgments against other nations when it feels they are not living up to their treaty obligations, takes its ball and goes home, what's going to happen if China, or Brazil, or India, follow suit?. As committee chair John Conyers, D-Mich., noted near the conclusion of the hearing, the flouting of international law on the topic of Internet gambling comes in the context of a world environment in which a growing number of critics believe "our government has been in reckless disregard of many of our treaties, conventions, protocols, ranging from anti-nuclear to environmental to torture."

Every participant in this hearing was well armed and articulate. Panel members and committee members jousted directly with each other on issues of law and morality. But the unquestionable highlight, for How the World Works, came when freshman congressman Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., engaged the Family Research Council's McClusky on just where the line should be drawn. If one of the reasons to support a ban on Internet gambling was the technical impossibility of preventing children from participating, then why allow online access to lotteries, or to horse-race betting?

Better yet, why allow horse racing at all?

COHEN: Do you think that horse racing and dog racing and lotteries should be legal in the United States?

MCCLUSKY: Are you asking me?

COHEN: Yes, you personally.

MCCLUSKY: The Family Research Council does believe that such things should be illegal.

COHEN: So it is really not the Internet you are against. It is gambling in general. Is that right?

MCCLUSKY: Yes, that would be true, or at least unrestricted gambling such as we have with the Internet or other.

COHEN: But the lottery is restricted. You can't play if you are a child. Same thing with horse racing. But you are against that, are you not?

MCCLUSKY: Yes.

COHEN: So restricted or unrestricted, you are against it?

MCCLUSKY: Yes.

COHEN: Is there any fun that you are for?

McClusky subsequently tried to defuse the question by joking that he was in favor of the hearing itself, and that seemed like "fun," but the damage was done. For years, groups like the Family Research Council have been setting the agenda in Washington. But on Thursday a congressman in the majority party mocked their anti-fun agenda. Steve Cohen, he's our man.

Source: Salon.com

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LAS VEGAS

Casino giant Harrah's Entertainment Inc.'s chief executive said Wednesday he's looking at taking the World Series of Poker brand into the realm of Internet poker in the U.K. and continental Europe.

Gary Loveman made the comment at the Global Gaming Expo, the largest trade show of the year for the North American casino industry.

Banks and payment processors are prohibited from handling cash transactions from U.S.-based players to and from online poker sites under legislation President Bush signed into law last year. But Internet gambling businesses are treated differently around the world.

"If you take a look at the legal landscape in continental Europe and the United Kingdom, there are countries where it's demonstrably legal and there's absolutely no encumbrance," Loveman said. "Those are areas that are very attractive to us."

Tournament spokesman Gary Thompson said Harrah's is studying the market and legal conditions before deciding whether to continue. It would not enter the online poker market "where there are any gray areas," he said.

Harrah's bought the rights to the World Series of Poker in 2004, and it is the game's pinnacle event of the year. But attendance this year was hurt because many online poker sites didn't give out prize packages to U.S. residents awarding them seats in the main event that cost $10,000 each.

Source: Businessweek.com

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If there was ever any doubt that High Stakes Poker means just that, a recent episode of the GSN poker TV show put former World Series of Poker champ Jamie Gold in a hand with Patrik Antonius with some $700,000 on the line. Gold, who wound up with a set of Kings, was all in to Antonius, who had caught an ace high straight. As it was a cash game the players "ran it three times", meaning they played with three river cards, each for a third of the pot. Gold got lucky twice, hitting full houses, and won 2/3 of the pot.

Source: Launchpoker.com

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NEW YORK — GigaMedia Ltd., a Taiwanese online gaming company, said Wednesday its third-quarter profit climbed 49 percent, driven by growth in its core poker software and Asian online game businesses.

Net income increased to $9.7 million, or 16 cents per share, compared with $6.5 million, or 11 cents per share, in the prior-year period. Excluding a stock-based compensation charge, earnings grew to $10.2 million, or 17 cents per share, from $6.6 million, or 11 cents per share.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expected a profit of 15 cents per share.

Operating revenue soared 76 percent to $43 million from $24.4 million on continued growth in its European poker software business and contributions from its Asian online games business.

The company said it expects its gaming software business to continue to perform well in the fourth quarter on increased tournament and marketing activities and a seasonal rise in online gaming, partially offset by increased competition. It also anticipates revenue growth in its Asian online games business due to new games set to be released and marketing investments in the third quarter.

A continued decline in broadband ISP revenue is expected for the fourth quarter. GigaMedia said it may sell the unit and is in talks with some buyers.

Shares of GigaMedia dropped $1.45, or 6.7 percent, to $19.65 in morning trading.

Source: The Associated Press

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LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwire - November 13, 2007) - The World Poker Store Inc. (PINKSHEETS: WPKS), a Nevada corporation with corporate offices in St. Paul, MN, continues its expansion of The Bar Poker League and its brick and mortar retail offering. Just in time for the holidays, The World Poker Store Washington LLC., a subsidiary of the parent company WPKS, opens its doors to another 6,000 Square ft. of premium poker products. The newest WPS retail outlet is located at The Commons at Federal Way, a popular upscale mall serving the greater Seattle and Tacoma area. The World Poker Store Washington joins the Minnesota retail stores as a unique brick and mortar retail outlet entirely devoted to poker, offering everything from Texas Hold 'em tables, Casino Quality Chips, DVDs, Books, Apparel, poker paraphernalia and Tour Pro Collectibles. "The World Poker Store and its affiliates around the world welcome the addition of the Washington market to our ever growing poker family. We look forward to our pre-holiday grand opening and promoting poker through the store and The Bar Poker League in the great Northwest," said Chuck Chastain, CEO of the World Poker Store Inc.

Following the opening at The Commons, The World Poker Store will introduce The Bar Poker League and its interactive website to the Washington market with live Texas Hold 'em tournaments hosted at bars and restaurants throughout the Seattle and Tacoma area. The store will promote the league throughout the holidays and build a member base ready for league play as it launches in January of 2008. Both the retail store and the league will benefit from the support, efforts and experience of the World Poker Store Washington Management team Paul Krenik Sr., Paul Krenik Jr., Erica Rudy and 2006 Minnesota Bar Poker League State Champion Jamin Neppl.

With offices in St. Paul, MN, Fort Myers, FL, Amsterdam, NL, Shenzhen, China and now Federal Way, WA, The World Poker Store Inc. continues to bring Free Texas Hold 'em, retail poker sales and World Class entertainment to the world. WPS hosts a worldwide poker community on its website www.theworldpokerstore.com and continues to add new player members while offering retail poker items for purchase online as well. Currently running hundreds of tournaments per week, WPS offers a live, face to face, poker tournament experience without the risk of gambling and boasts the support of its advisory board of world class poker players Marcel Luske, Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan, Patrik Antonius, Hoyt Corkins and Liz Lieu with the focus of bringing the thrill of Texas Hold 'em and the Las Vegas experience to the world.

This press release contains information that constitutes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any future results described within the forward-looking statements. The forward-looking information provided herein represents the Company's estimates as of the date of the press release, and subsequent events and developments may cause the Company's estimates to change. The Company specifically disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking information in the future. Therefore, this forward-looking information should not be relied upon as representing the Company's estimates of its future financial performance as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

Source: Marketwire.com